Harry Shrugged
by Emmeebee
Summary: Ever since Harry's initial introduction to the wizarding world, the people around him have heaped their expectations and hopes and fears on his shoulders, expecting him to bear the weight without complaint. Throughout the war, he steadfastly endures the burden. One day, however, he decides that he's had enough.


A/N: I haven't read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, and, after getting caught up in a whirlwind of articles about its problematic and prescriptive elements, I'm not planning to, but this was inspired by a scene in it wherein one character asks another what they would say to Atlas, the titan tasked to hold up the celestial spheres as a punishment for his rebelliousness, before saying they'd advise him to shrug. In this case, I've gone with the more recent holding-up-the-world interpretation.

Character Versatility Challenge – prompt: Harry Potter

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Ever since the night Harry unwittingly vanquished Voldemort, they've been accumulating their hopes and expectations, lying in wait for his return like tigers waiting to strike. By the time the wide-eyed, naïve eleven-year-old wandered into their midst, they had amassed an enormous burden that they proceeded to eagerly heap upon his narrow shoulders. The sudden weight confused him, but, after spending all of his life being belittled and dismissed, he was just pleased that he was finally being accepted and valued. He was esteemed, and his life had a purpose. It wasn't a pleasant purpose, by any means, but it was better than nothing.

And, by some stroke of luck, he was able to bear it. He endured the public scrutiny and the constant danger and the unfounded slander, and he came out stronger for it. With his friends by his side, holding him up when he thought his knees would falter, he invariably got there. And the trial honed his muscles and developed his endurance until he was the most perceptive and resilient student at Hogwarts.

Seeing that he could take it, the world kept heaping more expectations and hopes on him, assuming that he could take whatever they threw his way because, after all, that was what he always did. They grew to expect him to be the cornerstone for the new golden age of peace; his job was to smile and charm and succeed and hide the fact that his shoulders were starting to strain under the weight they constantly forced upon him. But he'd never been taught how to charm people, and the pressure was accumulating like a snowball, and nobody seemed to believe him when he told them how hefty his load was getting. But, to his callow mind, the idea of somehow just resigning seemed preposterous; it was undeniably a hassle, but it was still _his_ burden to bear.

Besides, although it was strenuous, he mostly succeeded. He suffered and held fast and hunted and _won_. Finally, Voldemort lay, defeated, on the stone floor of the place where Harry had previously been mocked and snubbed and hated for doing his job. Staring down at his arch-nemesis, Harry thought it was all over. Surely the world had found a way to reduce its bulk by then, had learned to take care of its own problems so that the seventeen-year-old wouldn't have to do it for them, had considered his needs after all the times he'd prioritised theirs.

It hadn't.

The fear of an apocalypse passed, but their demands didn't shrink back to anything even resembling fairness. The encumbrance had forced him to his knees, rendering him almost prone, until his whole being was channelled into getting through each minute as they came rushing past. Nightmares and aches and dreams haunted him like a shadow, always remaining one step behind him under the gaze of the vigilant sun and unerringly threatening to overwhelm under the moon's permissive watch. His friends stood with him, but they had to deal with their own shadows. Their lives had taken an exacting toll on all of them; instead of a reprieve, the compensation for hard work had, time and time again, merely been a heightened load.

Watching their minds and bodies start to decay, and feeling his own following that same path, Harry made up his mind. He did the only thing left that made sense to him.

Harry shrugged, and then he and his friends dove out of the way.

And, as they lay on the ground and rested their weary selves, the world came crashing down to shatter into a thousand pieces on the spot where they'd once stood and so dutifully toiled.


End file.
